Grand Rapids Public Library visits down overall, but up at two branches

MLive.com FileVisits to Grand Rapids Public Library's Madison Square branch have increased 19 percent since Guy Thompson browsed through these videos in July 2008.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Visits to the city library fell 4.5 percent to less than 1 million in the fiscal year that ended in June, according to a report to the Board of Library Commissioners. Traffic at the Main Library downtown slipped 7 percent, although two of the seven Grand Rapids Public Library branches saw an increase in the number of visitors.

The two branches that had more foot traffic: Madison Square saw a 4.8 percent spike, while Seymour visits were up 1.2 percent.

Staff at the Madison Square branch attribute the increase in visitors to literacy promotion done in partnership with LINC, Believe 2 Become and the Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative, library spokeswoman Kristen Krueger-Corrado said. Those three nonprofits are working to improve literacy levels in that part of Grand Rapids, and “all three strongly advocate that people use the library and get library cards,” she said.

“Because of the work of these organizations, Madison has seen an increase of neighborhood residents using the library and has one of the highest rates of library card registration in the system,” Krueger-Corrado said.

Among the other GRPL branches, Ottawa Hills had the sharpest decline in visitors, down 6.6 percent. Traffic fell 4.9 percent at Van Belkum, 4.7 percent at West Leonard, 2.9 percent at Yankee Clipper and 2.5 percent at West Side. Judy Stilley, Van Belkum branch manager, attributed some of the decline to Plainfield Avenue road work that may have contributed to a 12.8 percent dip in June visits.

The decline in Grand Rapids library circulation was less pronounced, down 0.8 percent during the 2011-2012 fiscal year. Circulation at the Main Library was down 1.2 percent, though it still accounted for 52 percent of the system’s total circulation.

Circulation was down 8 percent at Yankee Clipper, 1.2 percent at Ottawa Hills and 0.5 percent at Van Belkum. Circulation rose 5.1 percent at Madison Square, 3.2 percent at Seymour, 2 percent at West Leonard and 1.1 percent at West Side.

“The library looks at both visits and circulation together to see the larger picture of usage,” Krueger-Corrado said. “With both, we see a general upward trend, which means our community is using the library more than it was five, 10 years ago.”

Across the city library system, annual visits rose from 880,440 in 2005 to 965,235 in 2007. The number of visitors since has fluctuated, surpassing 1 million visits in 2008 and 2011. The final tally for the 2012 fiscal year was 977,359.

During that period, annual visits to grpl.org -- including photograph collections, databases and e-book downloads -- have increased from 608,280 in 2006 to almost 1.5 million in 2011. Web traffic then soared to almost 4 million visits in the 2012 fiscal year that ended in June, according to library data. Most of that growth came from improved access to the library's online collection of more than 1 million historical photographs of Grand Rapids, Krueger-Corrado said.